(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a design check knowledge construction method and system that use a computer to provide construction support and management for check knowledge for evaluating design information about a design target.
(2) Description of the Related Art
The contents of a design (design information) have been generally checked in accordance with a checklist in order to assure the quality of the results of creative activities of human beings, such as artificial objects, particularly, products designed and manufactured by human beings.
The contents of the checklist for use at a product design stage include not only safety and other regulations and standards but also previous troubles, design and manufacture standards, accumulated knowhow, and other knowledge in the form of a rule. Here it is assumed that these contents are generically referred to as check knowledge.
In recent years, the check knowledge is managed in the form of an electronic data file in addition to paper or shared and managed through the use of a file server or database. When a user uses the check knowledge, the user may perform a search and narrow down the contents of the check knowledge by specifying a category or keyword and compile the result in the form of a checklist, or may compile the entire contents in the form of a checklist so as not to leave anything unchecked.
Technologies for document search, or more particularly, technologies for document classification or document interpretation support, are well known as technologies for knowledge management. As a technology for document classification, a method for building a classification database (thesaurus or classification ontology) by entering text documents and keyword source documents, which serve as a source of keywords, is proposed, for instance, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2003-108569, which is entitled “Classification Processing Device, Classification Processing Device Control Method, Control Program, and Recording Medium.” As a technology for document interpretation support, a modeling technology for interpreting patent documents with ease from the viewpoint of intellectual property management is proposed, for instance, in a paper entitled “Patent Document Meaning Interpretation Model based on Device Ontology and Its Implementation (Patent Understanding Computer),” authored by Jun Takatoh, Yoshinobu Kitamura, and Riichiro Mizoguchi, and presented at Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence Annual Meeting 2007.
The check knowledge tends to increase because new findings, failure countermeasures, and other relevant information are incorporated into it. Meanwhile, the contents of the check knowledge need to be reviewed after each technological innovation because manufacturing technologies rapidly advance. In general, the check knowledge is manually constructed and maintained. Therefore, the number of required man-hours increases with an increase in the amount of knowledge. Further, if the check knowledge is inadequately maintained, product quality deteriorates.
If the well-known technologies are applied to the construction and maintenance support for the check knowledge, the method described, for instance, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2003-108569, which is entitled “Classification Processing Device, Classification Processing Device Control Method, Control Program, and Recording Medium,” may facilitate the classification and orderly disposition of the contents of the check knowledge, whereas the method described, for instance, in the paper entitled “Patent Document Meaning Interpretation Model based on Device Ontology and Its Implementation (Patent Understanding Computer),” authored by Jun Takatoh, Yoshinobu Kitamura, and Riichiro Mizoguchi, and presented at Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence Annual Meeting 2007 may facilitate the understanding of the check knowledge as it converts a designated piece of content in the check knowledge to an easy-to-understand function decomposition tree. However, neither of these methods provides check knowledge contraction support (no associated technology is described in the above related-art documents). Therefore, neither of these methods can adequately improve the quality of the contents of the check knowledge and fully enhance the quality of a product, which is a final target to be checked.
The present invention has been made to address the above technical problems, and provides a design check knowledge construction method and system that make it possible to adequately improve the quality of the contents of the check knowledge and fully enhance the quality of a product, which is a final target to be checked.